Sr. Director, Engineering – MP&A and Finance

Location: Philadelphia, PA

Work Arrangement: On-site / Hybrid; candidates must be willing to relocate to the Philadelphia area within 3-6 months

Employment Type: Full-Time, Direct Hire

Position Summary

Our client is seeking a Sr. Director, Engineering – MP&A and Finance to lead the technology organization supporting merchandise planning, allocation, replenishment, finance, and related enterprise capabilities.

This leader will own technology strategy, architecture, delivery, reliability, modernization, and team leadership across a complex retail environment. The role requires deep experience with merchandising and planning technology, strong engineering leadership, and the ability to partner closely with senior business and product leaders.

The ideal candidate is a strategic technology leader who remains technically credible, understands large-scale retail systems, and can translate business priorities into scalable technology solutions and measurable outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Lead technology strategy and execution across merchandise planning, assortment, allocation, replenishment, finance, and related enterprise functions.
• Partner with senior business, product, engineering, architecture, data, security, and program leadership to define multi-year technology roadmaps.
• Translate business priorities into operating plans, engineering initiatives, and measurable outcomes.
• Provide senior-level technical and architectural leadership across packaged platforms, custom applications, integrations, data pipelines, and cloud services.
• Lead modernization initiatives focused on scalability, resiliency, automation, performance, and technical debt reduction.
• Oversee engineering delivery and operations for business-critical applications and platforms.
• Establish and monitor engineering KPIs across delivery, quality, availability, release health, supportability, and operational performance.
• Lead incident management, root cause analysis, problem management, and continuous improvement.
• Drive API, event-driven, batch, and cloud-based integration strategies across enterprise platforms.
• Ensure technology solutions meet enterprise security, governance, compliance, audit, and risk requirements.
• Lead build-vs-buy evaluations and assess emerging technologies for business value, scalability, cost, and long-term maintainability.
• Manage vendor relationships, implementation partners, offshore resources, and blended delivery teams.
• Lead budgeting, capacity planning, resource allocation, and technology investment decisions.
• Serve as a trusted technology partner to senior merchandising, product, and executive leadership.
• Build and develop a high-performing engineering organization consisting of engineers, architects, contractors, and partner resources.
• Coach and develop technical leaders while maintaining strong accountability for delivery and results.
• Evaluate opportunities to incorporate AI and emerging technologies into existing business and technology processes.
• Support highly available, high-traffic digital and e-commerce environments.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, enterprise applications, technology delivery, or related disciplines.
• 7+ years of technology leadership experience managing engineering teams and/or technical leaders.
• Significant experience within retail technology, particularly merchandise planning, assortment, allocation, replenishment, or adjacent merchandising domains.
• Experience with enterprise merchandise planning and allocation platforms such as o9, Blue Yonder/JDA, or comparable retail planning technologies.
• Strong understanding of retail business processes including:
  • Assortment planning
  • Allocation
  • Replenishment
  • Demand planning
  • Inventory management
  • Merchandising
• Experience leading complex enterprise technology modernization initiatives.
• Strong understanding of enterprise architecture, integrations, APIs, event-driven systems, batch processing, and data platforms.
• Experience leading blended teams consisting of internal employees, contractors, offshore teams, and external technology partners.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with senior business and product leaders and translate business strategy into technology roadmaps.
• Experience supporting large-scale, high-traffic e-commerce or consumer-facing technology environments.
• Strong knowledge of engineering operations including reliability, observability, CI/CD, automated testing, release management, and incident management.
• Experience operating within enterprise governance, security, audit, and compliance environments.
• Experience managing budgets, vendors, implementation partners, and technology investments.
• Practical experience evaluating or incorporating AI and emerging technologies into enterprise technology environments.
• Strong communication, executive presence, and stakeholder-management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience leading merchandising technology within a large retail organization.
• Experience with o9 or comparable enterprise MP&A platforms.
• Experience with enterprise financial systems and finance-related integrations.
• Experience modernizing legacy or batch-heavy retail technology environments.
• Experience working across merchandising, product, finance, digital, and engineering organizations.
• Experience partnering directly with senior merchandising or executive business leadership.